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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to expect my husband to do housework?

74 replies

Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 10:01

I have a DH and two kids and although my DH works long hours during half of the dairy farming season in which he is never around much and I do all the work in the home, the other half of the season are just are just the average job hours. Although he says all housework and children jobs are mine as I am the stay at home mum, and he is the worker... "Any thing in the fenceline is your job", he says. Is that normal/acceptable?

OP posts:
sunshineandbooks · 12/06/2011 11:39

SAHM may be a new term but it has come about precisely because society has moved on and realised that women don't have to work 3x as many hours as men simply because they don't have a penis.

OP, your children are a joint responsibility, not yours alone. They take their genes half from both of you. Don't let your DH kid you into thinking he is 'keeping you' by 'letting you' be a SAHM. He would not be able to do his job without you providing the childcare.

Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 11:44

Sardine, he goes thru waves with his ocd and depression, sometimes when its bad hes very sad and cries alot and doesnt care about the house or anything and just hugs me a lot. THen when hes better, hes happy but also assumes the role of the master of the house and tells me things like "dont go on the computer you havnt finished the (insert job) yet" or he will sort of make a comment like "youre not finished tidying that are you"? even when he knows im finished tidying etc. Once the house was messy and he said "this place is a tip, youre getting lazier and lazier"!!!!

But thats not all the time, thats the thing with mental illness, its SO up and down. Some days he will say "oh how great the house is messy, it means you have been playing with the kids and haveing fun"!! So its hard to know where i stand on a day to day basis!! Our councellor is working with him, our marriage is in a good place right now compared to what ive been thru at some low points.

OP posts:
Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 11:47

Sunshineandbooks thank you, that is what i think too!!! he couldnt make the money he makes with out me and vice versa. Hes a worker, but still a parent!!

I said to him, "every second that you step out of that door to work, I am a solo parent doing everything alone, raising feeding and cleaning YOUR (and my) children, but when you walk in the door, we are 50/50, both parents"

He so doesnt agree. [insert frustration icon]

OP posts:
TheMonster · 12/06/2011 11:49

If he works fulltime and you are a SAHM then the housework and childcare are surely your responsibility while he is working?

Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 11:49

I guess i posted this just to see if my frustrations are warranted. Im not about to try and change him (ive had 5 years of that to no avail, although funnily enough he says over that time he's 'trained' me to be a much more tidy, better person')

OP posts:
Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 11:52

Eeyore, yes definitly my responsibility when hes working!! I think thats my role as a SAHM!!

But im meaning when we both arent working (well, when hes doing minimal hours in the dry season or on his 4 weeks worth of holiday) do i expect him to help, or his SAHM my full time 24/7 JOB that means I do everything regardless of the hours he works.

OP posts:
SardineQueen · 12/06/2011 11:53

kiwi TBH it sounds awful, you don't know where you are from one moment to the next. He keeps moving the goalposts. It must be so hard for you.

Is he getting "proper" medical treatment - is that where the councillor came from - or is the councillor private?

I think you should post this in relationships TBH

SardineQueen · 12/06/2011 11:53

Have you read the thread eeyore?

In the off season he works 5 hours a day.

TheMonster · 12/06/2011 11:55

Nope, I haven't read the whole thread.

troisgarcons · 12/06/2011 11:56

SAHM may be a new term but it has come about precisely because society has moved on and realised that women don't have to work 3x as many hours as men simply because they don't have a penis.

Must have my thick-mc-thicky head on today because I don't understand why running the hoover round equated to working 3x longer than men!

I'm from the generation who was told we could have it all - career, kids, homeownership, husband and wouldn't it be glorious? no it bloody wasn't! It caused massive greed, rise in house prices, breakdown of society and abovee all FORCED women to work to maintain anything like a half decent standard of living. No CHOICE about it unfortunately if you went up the homeownership route.

Having done my stint as career-girl, working-mother, home-maker, part-time worker - I certainly know which is the rosier role.

Cymar · 12/06/2011 11:56

YANBU. If he is capable of going out during the day to work, then there's no excuse for him not to do some housework when he gets home after the shorter hours he does.

SardineQueen · 12/06/2011 11:56

Might be a plan Wink

SardineQueen · 12/06/2011 11:59

What generation was that then troisgarcons? How old are you?

Women being allowed to work after marriage caused the breakdown of society?

Amazing how everything is the fault of women, isn't it.

sunshineandbooks · 12/06/2011 12:02

troisgarcons - to answer your last point, it's not about what's the easiest role - WOHM or SAHM - because that implies that there is an easiest and that one role is worth more than the other. There are too many variables to make sweeping statements like that.

However, my point about the change from 'home maker' to 'SAHM' was a (admittedly flippant) way of saying that we should recognise that looking after the DC is a demanding, full-time job, and therefore does not mean that you should also be doing ALL the cooking and cleaning because that's also another full time job.

If OP is on her feet all day, looking after the DC, cleaning, cooking, filling in the paperwork, paying the bills, managing the farm invoices, how is it fair that when her DH gets in he gets to put up his feet and do nothing while she's sorting out tea and then doing the washing up, folding up the sheets that she didn't have time to do earlier because she was looking after the kids instead...

dadof2littlebuggers · 12/06/2011 12:06

whoever is at home, be it the husband or the wife, should do the vast majority of the housework. i'm a self-employed builder, when times are bad and i'm out of work i do everything in the house, my wife comes home and does nothing, ...she loves it when i'm out of work! but the cash flows less of course.
i'll say this, i'm glad to get back to work though, housework dragges you down, kids slowly wide you up over a few days. it's no joyride doing all the household stuff, i sympathyse with you kiwimumm

troisgarcons · 12/06/2011 12:08

I'm nearly 50 (dear god! I just put that in writing!)

I'm the midway bit between the swinging 60's/70's and the greed culture of the 80's!

I'm not implying it's womens fault - putting words in my mouth there - the stress that relationships came under with the 'right to have it all' (working like a donkey/Supermum/sexgoddess/fashionplate etc etc) - that also factors in the 60's mentality of free love (without commitment) actually devalued women. It's didn't empower them to MAKE choices - it FORCED them to.

We would all be happier if we could do what we wanted to do, rather than being forced out to work - some women like being at home (I hated it, but thats another story), same as some women thrive at work, or some women don't want children. But HAVING to work for economic factors, when a woman wishes to fulfil a traditional homemaker role, is a whole different ball game.

TheMonster · 12/06/2011 12:09

I agree with dadof2.

(still haven't read the whole thread, though!)

Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 12:09

Thanx troisgarcons. Im generally really energetic and am used to doing long hours and lots of things, i was mainly wanting to see if my sometimes frustrated feelings at him were warranted.

I will say again hes a hard worker for our family, in the milking season he gets up 7 days a week for 2-3 months straight and works 90 hour weeks. Its damn hard work and i wouldnt be able to cope with it. So when i lay in bed all snuggled in at 4am listening to him get up and go out into the driving rain to get the cows, im glad im a SAHM!!

Its the dry season now and i guess i get fed up sometimes when i feel reeeeeally busy (i never get a dry season)! and hes sitting on the couch waiting to be served!!

OP posts:
dadof2littlebuggers · 12/06/2011 12:09

as for the insult, well, your married, and know each other well enough, i say things like that to my wife all the time , but she gives as good as she gets , and she usually comes out on top.

SardineQueen · 12/06/2011 12:10

Women have always worked though. Throughout the world.

This idea that women were not allowed to work and then were allowed to work was a middle class oddity around victorian ideas about women.

clam · 12/06/2011 12:10

As someone mentioned earlier, tot up how much free time you each have. It should be equal.

"dont go on the computer you havnt finished the (insert job) yet" Shock What is he, your dad??

And he says you're getting "lazier and lazier?"

How have you tolerated this so long? You call it "being traditional." I'd call it being a misogynistic bully.

TheMonster · 12/06/2011 12:11

WWII caused a lot of women to work that would otherwise have been SAHMs.

pumpernickel10 · 12/06/2011 12:14

I'm at home all the time but DH still helps with housework and cooking

Original poster
Kiwimumm · 12/06/2011 12:17

When he says not nice things, i know its cos of his mental illness (he crashed a truck in 2001 and was off work rehabilitating for 3 years) and i know he hates it when i cry in front of the councellor and reel off things he has said, he feels so stink. I know he really does love me and the kids and bust his ass in the milking season doing 90 hour weeks for months on end, i couldnt do such hard work like that with no break. He isnt what i would call a bully, just very closed minded toward anything or anyone that doesnt fit in his box that he calls "normal".
Ive learnt now over time that i cant be perfect, and when hes not nice i just ignore him or walk away. he doesnt get a bite/cry/reaction anymore, i know it's not me.

OP posts:
troisgarcons · 12/06/2011 12:19

What works for one relationship won't work for another.

What are traditional roles these days anyway? My mother didn't work, but my parents always did the washing up together! Today that's mutated into my H filling the dishewasher! Again my parents are of the generation of traditional roles - but make no mistake - my mother was the driving force and wore the pants. Which I think it always has been if truth be known. He deferred to her in all matters home and child related. Of course they had discussions but we always knew the outcome would be her choice. Her choice of wallpaer! her choice of holiday! Her choice of school! etc My Hs parents had the same sort of relationship. We have the same relationship. It works for us.

So why people think past generations were downtrodden doormats is beyond me! As far as I can see, men knew their place back then - in the potting shed and not getting under foot Grin (I jest with the last bit of course)

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